Astrochemical and prebiotic ion chemistry. Organic,
hydrothermal and physical
chemistry of planetary materials. Nutrient analysis of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, and algal, microbial and plant responses.
Propulsion,
astrometry, and microbiological requirements for directed panspermia.
Astroecology, astroethics, and the prospects for future life in space.
(More
on research interests in space science and astroecology)

Life is unique in nature
and has immense potentials in
space. We as intelligent beings can secure and advance that future. My
research in this area concerns the science and ethics of promoting life in
space, in this Solar System and beyond. In this Solar System, in situ organic
space resources are contained in carbonaceous chondrite asteroids, as
represented by meteorites. Our studies established that algae, bacteria and
plant cultures can grow on these space materials. These studies applied
miniaturized soil science methods to analyze nutrients in meteorite/asteroid and
in Martian materials. Based on key nutrient such as phosphate and nitrate,
immense amounts of life, on the order of 1018 kg (a million trillion
kg) of biomass, and 1015 (a million billion) humans, a hundred
thousand times the Earth’s population, can be sustained by the asteroids in this
Solar System alone. These results suggest that asteroids/meteorites could have
sustained early life, and can support immense amounts of future life in this, and
potentially in millions of other, solar systems. To this effect, we can launch
directed panspermia missions to new solar systems, using solar sails, high-precision astrometry, and
diverse colonizing microorganisms. These programs may be motivated by biotic
ethics that value the basic patterns of our family of gene/protein life, and by panbiotic
ethics that aim to secure and advance life in space. These new branches of life may lead
to intelligent species who will further expand life in the galaxy. When
life then fills the universe, our human existence will find a cosmic purpose.

Electrically charged ions are
prevalent in chemistry, including acid/base behavior, biochemistry, proteins and
enzymes, catalysis, industrial processes, supramolecular structure, planetary
ionospheres and interstellar chemistry. Ionic processes in the gas phase can be
studied directly by mass spectrometry. Some of these reactions show unusual
negative temperature coefficients, that are important for ionic polymerization
and for astrochemistry in cold interstellar clouds. Other ionic reactions, in
solution, are strongly affected by solvation. Gas-phase studies of these
reactions show the intrinsic solvent-free molecular effects on these processes.
Comparison with solution then reveals and quantifies the strong effects of
solvation on the energies of ions and on the kinetics of ionic reactions. My
research concerns the thermochemistry of protonation and deprotonation of
organic molecules, and intermolecular forces, especially ionic hydrogen bonds,
between ions and molecules in
clusters. The results provide basic insights in physical organic chemistry,
biochemistry and bioenergetics, astrochemistry and astrobiology.